Teaching The Faith

Why does the church teach? And what should it teach? In recent years, traditional Sunday school and education programs have declined in influence and effectiveness. Education in the church is often sidelined by other competing priorities, and our efforts become haphazard and random. As a result, many Christians have not learned the fundamental doctrinal content of the faith. As a response, a growing number of church ministries have moved toward an emphasis on Christian spiritual formation. But churches must hold together education and formation, the teaching of the faith and the forming of the faithful. In this comprehensive text, Gary Parrett and Steve Kang attend to both the content and process of educational and formational ministries. They set forth a thoroughly biblical vision for intentional teaching of the Christian faith, with a holistic concern for what and whom is taught as well as how and why. Fully apprised of developments in educational theory and pedagogy, Parrett and Kang propose a core curriculum for recovering the full scope of Christian proclamation and reinvigorating the teaching ministry of the church. Their vision has implications not merely for catechesis, but for preaching, worship, children's and youth ministry, and much more. The body of Christ can become all that God intends it to be, through intentional practices that foster personal and corporate formation. Here is guidance for individuals and congregations on that journey.

This useful, theologically informed guide "prepares the soil" for teachers in the church, whose purpose is to awaken, support, and challenge faith. Richard Osmer offers practical suggestions for preparing good lectures and leading lively discussions. He explores four important dimensions of faithfaith as belief, as commitment, as relationship, and as mysteryand describes different teaching approaches that can address each of these dimensions. Osmer demonstrates that teaching is a crucial task in the church today.

Christian teachers have long been thinking about what content to teach, but little scholarship has been devoted to how faith forms the actual process of teaching. Is there a way to go beyond Christian perspectives on the subject matter and think about the teaching itself as Christian? In this book David I. Smith shows how faith can and should play a critical role in shaping pedagogy and the learning experience.

As a teacher, you play a critical role in raising Faith Kids: Children who demonstrate that Jesus is alive and well in their hearts, minds and actions, regardless of their age, circumstance or location. Faith Teaching will show you how God has strategically positioned and empowered you to nurture and grow your student's faith. Through your love and commitment to your kids, you can form a solid foundation they'll build on for the rest of their lives. You'll also discover that you're not alone in this essential endeavor! By teaming up with your student's parents (Faith Parenting), you can encourage and inspire your students to boldly apply God's word to their lives in practical, powerful ways. And they'll love you for it.

In Teaching and Christian Practices several university professors describe and reflect on their efforts to allow historic Christian practices to reshape and redirect their pedagogical strategies. Whether allowing spiritually formative reading to enhance a literature course, employing table fellowship and shared meals to reinforce concepts in a pre-nursing nutrition course, or using Christian hermeneutical practices to interpret data in an economics course, these teacher-authors envision ways of teaching and learning that are rooted in the rich tradition of Christian practices, as together they reconceive classrooms and laboratories as vital arenas for faith and spiritual growth.

Joanne Rowling’s great epic is forming the faith and moral vision of millions of people. If you are reading this book, forming faith is at least part or maybe all of your vocation, as teacher, pastor, parent, godparent, roommate, sibling, spouse, or friend. In baptism we vow to form our faith and the faith of others. To not use this modern epic in your sacred work is to leave on the table one of the most ubiquitous and enchanting tools of our time to awaken and baptize the imagination. Don’t put this wand away.

The public university classroom is a place where socialization still occurs: it's where students learn to be citizens of the world. Having attended to political correctness and multi-culturalism, universities are now facing the issue of spirituality in their quest to educate the whole person. In this book, Chris Anderson takes up this task by carefully exploring how a professor of faith can help a public university accomplish its pluralistic mission. Anderson illustrates how the study of secular literature throws fresh light on the ways in which the Bible can be read. He also deftly shows how a sympathetic study of the Bible trains secular readers for understanding the abiding significance of the Western literary canon as a kind of scripture. Anderson thus gives readers a book that is as much about the experience of a faithful teacher and the proper ends of education as it is about discovering the right ways to read texts--be they sacred or secular.

An intimate cross-country look at the new debate over religion in the public schools A suburban Boston school unwittingly started a firestorm of controversy over a sixth-grade field trip. The class was visiting a mosque to learn about world religions when a handful of boys, unnoticed by their teachers, joined the line of worshippers and acted out the motions of the Muslim call to prayer. A video of the prayer went viral with the title “Wellesley, Massachusetts Public School Students Learn to Pray to Allah.” Charges flew that the school exposed the children to Muslims who intended to convert American schoolchildren. Wellesley school officials defended the course, but also acknowledged the delicate dance teachers must perform when dealing with religion in the classroom. Courts long ago banned public school teachers from preaching of any kind. But the question remains: How much should schools teach about the world’s religions? Answering that question in recent decades has pitted schools against their communities. Veteran education journalist Linda K. Wertheimer spent months with that class, and traveled to other communities around the nation, listening to voices on all sides of the controversy, including those of clergy, teachers, children, and parents who are Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Sikh, or atheist. In Lumberton, Texas, nearly a hundred people filled a school-board meeting to protest a teacher’s dress-up exercise that allowed freshman girls to try on a burka as part of a lesson on Islam. In Wichita, Kansas, a Messianic Jewish family’s opposition to a bulletin-board display about Islam in an elementary school led to such upheaval that the school had to hire extra security. Across the country, parents have requested that their children be excused from lessons on Hinduism and Judaism out of fear they will shy away from their own faiths. But in Modesto, a city in the heart of California’s Bible Belt, teachers have avoided problems since 2000, when the school system began requiring all high school freshmen to take a world religions course. Students receive comprehensive lessons on the three major world religions, as well as on Sikhism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and often Shintoism, Taoism, and Confucianism. One Pentecostal Christian girl, terrified by “idols,” including a six-inch gold Buddha, learned to be comfortable with other students’ beliefs. Wertheimer’s fascinating investigation, which includes a return to her rural Ohio school, which once ran weekly Christian Bible classes, reveals a public education system struggling to find the right path forward and offers a promising roadmap for raising a new generation of religiously literate Americans.